Throughout history in times of turbulence and tension there have been dire claims of the end of the world approaching.  Our own age sees a similar wave of anxious emotion, with thunderous calls to repent and join one group of the saved or another.  Juan Amin Betancur offers the following response to these calls; the original Spanish version is available here.

THE END OF THE WORLD?

I feel that if the end of the personal world or the global world’s end will have to come, whether one is a believer or not, it is better to receive this moment with a clear conscience: perhaps having deposited our grain of sand to leave this world better than we found it, at least among those around us in every circumstance and moment of life, having done the least damage possible – because it is impossible from our great limitation not to make mistakes. The world can end right now (for natural reasons, from the ecological damage we are causing, or because of some madman who triggers the holocaust). Meanwhile, the opportunistic, sick spokesmen of the apocalypse, who clearly show themselves taking advantage of the situation, aspiring to make a fast track conversion of the masses, manipulate by means of fear and terror. How pathetic! ‘Convert, the world is going to end!’ Be converted to what? To the exclusive and select club of each group that claims to have the ultimate truth? Misleading propaganda to recruit naïve people, and also to fill their pockets with the money of fear.

‘The word convinces but the example encourages’, said the wise. I prefer the simpler argument of inviting the other to reflect, and if it is necessary to say something, to say for example: ‘Try to improve at every moment your thought, word and deed, to help make this world a better world. Be grateful, with humility, for the fabulous creation that welcomed you, and revere the Mystery that is hidden behind it. So, if you have to go, you will leave with a smile, and without bitterness for having wasted your present, because your past you cannot change.’

And about converting others to something, then it is better that the wise life should give us the lessons we have to receive, to finally undertake a path which helps us discover our True Origin …

Juan Amin Betancur